Coins and Coin Finds in Finland AD 800-1200

238 Pages·2002·47.755 MB·English

by  Tuukka Talvio

SUOMEN MUIN AISMUISTOYHDISTYS
FINSKA FORNMINNESFÖRENINGEN
THE FINNISH ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY
ISKOS
12
HELSINKI 2002 HELSINGFORS
Toimittaja - Redaktör - Editor
TORSTEN EDGREN
ISBN 951 -9057-45-5
ISSN 0355-3108
Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy
Vammala 2002
COINS AND COIN FINDS IN FINLAND
AD 800-1200
Tuukka Talvio
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. 7
PART I
1. lntroduction ........................................................................................................ 8
The materia! ....................................................................................................... 8
Methodological considerations ......................................................................... 10
A note on collections, geography and dates ..................................................... 14
2. The coins in the finds ........................................................................................ 18
3. Previous studies ................................................................................................. 30
4. Hoards ................................................................................................................ 37
The discovery of hoards ....................................... ............................................. 38
The eastern coins ............................................................................................... 41
The ninth century ....................... ................................................................... 42
The tenth century .......................................................................................... 45
The western coins .............................................................................................. 46
Geographical distribution ............................................................................. 46
Chronology ........................................................... ........................................ 49
Non-monetary silver in the hoards ................................................................... 58
Relation between coins and non-monetary silver ....................................... 58
The origins of non-monetary silver ............................................................. 62
Problems of dating ....................................................................................... 64
Hoards with no coins .................................................................................... 65
5. Grave finds ......................................................................................................... 67
Coins in graves as ornaments and money ........................................................ 67
The finds ....................................... ......... ............. ............................................... 72
The coins ............................................................................................................ 76
Summary ............................................................................................................ 79
6. Single and cumulative finds .............................................................................. 80
Single finds ........................................................................................................ 80
Cumulative finds ................................................................................................ 83
7. Coin imports ...................................................................................................... 84
The eastern coins .. .......... ................................................................................... 85
The earliest finds from Finland ................................................................... 85
Ninth-century hoards .................................................................................... 88
Tenth-century Åland ..................................................................................... 91
The tenth-century on the mainland: the last phase of Islamic imports ...... 98
The Byzantine coins .......................................................................................... 104
The western coins ........ .................. ......................................................... ........... I 06
The tenth and eleventh centuries ................................................................. 106
The twelfth century ...................................................................................... 109
Import routes ................................................................................................. 110
The end of western imports ............. ....... ...................... ..... ........................ .. 116
8. Interpretation of the hoards ..... ........................ ...................... ........................ .... 117
Recent studies ........................ .............. ............ ...................... ........... ............. .... 117
The Finnish hoards and the 'Satakunta problem' ............................................ 119
9. Coins and money in late prehistoric Finland ................................................... 124
PART II
Catalogues
Hoards ................................................................................................................ 131
Grave finds ......................................................................................................... 167
Single finds ........................................................................................................ 195
Cumulative finds ................................................................................................ 205
Appendix: Coin finds from former Finnish Karelia and the Salla-Kuusamo area. 209
Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 218
Abbreviations ....... ..... ........... ........ .... .................. ...................... ..... .......................... 230
List of figures and maps . ..... ...... .. ....... ......................... ....... ... ................................. 231
Index of finds .......................................................................................................... 232
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Acknowledgements
1n the course of my work upon the Viking-Age coin finds over the past thirty years,
I have been in contact with, and helped - often very generously - by many numisma-
tists and archaeologists within and outside Finland. They are too many to be thanked
here but most of them will find their names in the text. I must, however, mention
those who have taken a persona! interest in this particular publication: Pekka Sarvas,
Kenneth Jansson, Gert Rispling and Mark Blackburn. I am also grateful to the Finn-
ish Antiquarian Society, who have published this work, to Torsten Edgren, the editor
of the series, to Ari Siiriäinen, my supervisor at the University of Helsinki, and to Jiiri
Kokkonen, who has helped with the language checking. Elina Screen has been won-
derfully helpful, not only in correcting my English but commenting on various other
questions as well.
Tuukka Talvio
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PART I
1. INTRODUCTION
Finds of Oriental and European silver coins form a conspicuous, yet elusive, element
in the archaeological materia! of the ninth-twelfth centuries in the Northern lands. At
one time, Roman denarii and early Byzantine solidi occupied a similar position in the
finds of southern Scandinavia, but the Viking-Age finds are even richer and their
geographical spread is broader.
In Finland the contrast between the handful of coins from the pre-Viking period
and the seven thousand coins from the Viking Age is striking, but compared with the
finds from Sweden and Russia, the materia! is very modest. This, however, does not
diminish its importance from Finland's point of view
Most of the coins were published several decades ago in Anglo-Saxon Coins Found
in Finland by C. A. Nordman (1921), Deutsche Munzen in vorgeschichtlichen Funden
Finnlands by Helmer Salmo (1948) and Förteckning över kufiska myntfynd i Finland
by Beatrice Granberg (1966). Ali three works are primarily catalogues, but Salmo
also discusses the finds and their interpretation, and Nordman dealt with the same
questions in separate studies in 1933 and 1942. With the exception of a new catalogue
of Anglo-Saxon and related coins by the present writer (1978), the more recent
literature consists of short general surveys, 1 even shorter commentaries in archaeo-
logical textbooks, and a few publications of a more specialized nature.2 There is
clearly a need for a new presentation and analysis of the finds.
A full treatment of the materia! should ideally include contributions not only from
specialists in eastern and western coins but also in non-monetary silver and the
prehistoric economy. In recent years, the role of non-monetary silver in the economic
systems of the Viking Age has been the subject of lively interest,3 and it would
certainly be desirable that in Finland, too, this aspect of the finds would be studied in
more detail than in the present work. Considering, however, that most of the Viking-
Age silver hoards in Finland contain coins, and that many of them indeed consist
wholly of coins, a study of the numismatic data can be considered an appropriate
starting point.
Neither Nordman nor Salmo seem to have been very interested in numismatics
beyond their own specialities. Some of their conclusions concerning the coin finds
have nonetheless influenced our picture of Viking-Age Finland more than is usually
realized. These and other interpretations are reviewed in the two final chapters of the
present work.
The material
The number of coins acquired by Finnish museums from finds made in the present
area of Finland is now slightly more than 7,000. There is also information on perhaps
1 Talvio 1982a and 1987.
2 E.g. P. Sarvas 1972 and 1973.
3 E.g. Hårdh 1996.
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